


A Hard Day's Work

by Allekha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Competition, Friendship, Gen, Mid-Canon, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: The men's event at Rosetelecom is full of drama.The women's event at Rostelecom... is also full of drama.
Relationships: Mila Babicheva & Sara Crispino
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	A Hard Day's Work

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soulstoned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulstoned/gifts).



Competition always makes Mila's heart flutter, and today it races as she waits to go out for the warm-up, bouncing in place. Her headphones are in her bag – she's excited enough as it is from the energy in the arena, and there's no use in pumping herself up even more with some good tunes. That also means she can't pretend she can't hear every one of Yakov's reminders.

"Posture," he snaps, and she straightens her spine a few centimeters. Yakov says something else, but she ignores him to peer around the other ladies. She wants to get on the ice already, wants to dig her blades into it, wants to jump.

When they open the door to the rink, Mila manages to be the first one on. There's nothing in the world like fresh ice under her feet. If she had the chance, she would immediately head out for a wide circuit of the rink, pushing herself faster and faster as the ice urged her on, but alas, they want to line them up and introduce them to the crowd first.

So she smiles and does a little twirl when her name is called, grinning when the audience screams deafeningly loud for her and the other two Russian ladies. Like all the others, though, she's already trying to warm her muscles up, sliding her feet back and forth, then bursting forward as soon as the warm-up proper starts.

Yakov always tells her not to jump too much in the warm-ups. Mila adores jumping – it's her favorite part of the sport – and landing a few always makes her feel prepared. She does enough of them that Yakov is probably glaring at her from the boards, but she doesn't feel tired at all. It helps to take the edge off of her excitement, and she dodges around Sara and another Russian girl at the end of the warm-up to do a half-hearted spin to mollify Yakov.

Getting off the ice, she reaches to take her guards from Yakov, only to stumble forward and nearly fall as someone trips into her from behind. One of the officials catches her, and Yakov's hand is on her arm too just a moment later.

"Oh, god, I'm so sorry," Sara gasps from behind her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" Mila laughs, smiling at the official and shaking off Yakov's hand. She takes a peek over her shoulder as she slides her guards onto her blades, and Sara gives her an apologetic smile. The girl behind her glares at both of them, as though it matters if she gets off the ice five seconds sooner.

Sara looks a little strange, eyes too pinched and her smile not reaching all the way. She's been weird all day; she had an uncharacteristic lack of energy at the practice sessions earlier, and when they went out to lunch together, she kept checking her phone but never unlocking it.

It's got to be the thing with her brother. Mila doesn't entirely understand what was happening there, but she remembers how hard Sara was crying when she bolted from the stands during Mickey's free skate yesterday, and he's not been backstage with her today. There's definitely something up. Are they fighting? They never fight, far as Mila knows – they're always like the perfect pair of siblings – but maybe that means they're overdue for one.

Mila can't say she wouldn't mind if Sara's distracted during her free program; Mila likes winning, after all, and that would make things easier. But afterward, she'd take her out for a drink or something. Buy her some good chocolate. Whatever would help. She likes Sara, too.

They all separate in the backstage area. Mila is going second-to-last, and Sara will go ahead of her. They're almost tied from the short program, and another Russian woman is a scarce point and a half above them, the other just below them. It's going to be a tough fight for every place on the podium.

That's fine. Mila's blood rushes in her ears as she keeps her body warm, imagining every movement of her program and going over them one last time under Yakov's watchful gaze and the eye of a camera. The minutes tick by too slowly, until at last Sara is on the screens.

Mila slows down to watch her. Sara seems strangely nervous for a moment, talking with her coach and glancing to the side as though Mickey will suddenly come forth. Mila wonders if Sara wants that, or if she's afraid of it.

But then Sara skates out, all smiles, and Mila can already tell it's going to be a good one. And it is; Sara's skating to an energetic piece, flirty, with a swing to her hips and a shimmy of her shoulders, ooh, that was a gorgeous combo.

Yakov catches her attention and right, next is her turn. She misses some of the program as she steps out into the arena with him. Sara's at the other end of the ice, and Mila's heart thumps so hard in her chest to see her. She's beautiful and has powerful stroking and she flies right into this jump that—

—has her sprawling across the ice. Mila winces as the audience gasps and then claps as she stands. Sara doesn't waver, or at least, she doesn't do so too much; she's maybe more tentative than she should be as she finishes up, but it's still a success overall.

Still, Mila knows she can beat it; that one fall could have even cost Sara a medal, with how close things are. Mila needs to skate clean, sure, and she probably needs her own secret weapon to win, but gold is so close she can almost reach out and grab it from the cold air.

"Don't get impatient," Yakov says, probably because she keeps rocking up on her toes like she's about to take off rather than because he can read minds. Probably.

"I'm not," she says, not even trying with the lie. He rolls his eyes at her and holds his hand out for her guards when Sara comes to the edge of the rink.

Mila has a chance to go all-out for just a moment, a sheet of ice open for her and her alone. She speeds up as much as she can and does a few warm-up jumps before circling back around. This is her time to impress, everyone looking down at her and her alone, so many of them her countrymen with flags clutched in their hands. It's so exciting that her hands shake from it as she shucks her jacket. Pressure never gets to her, only anticipation.

"I just wish I was last again today," she sighs as she drops it somewhere near Yakov's arm. He'll catch it, it's fine. Last is nice because then she decides the final results for everyone. There's something powerful in the arena waiting on bated breath to see how the event will shake out in the end.

"You look fine even so," Yakov says dryly. "Remember, don't rush the takeoff, and...."

She half listens to him, half to the score being read out. That's doable. She can beat that.

Finally, finally, _finally_ , it's her turn. The crowd is screaming as she takes her position, leaning into a pose that's cool and disaffected.

The way Mila sees it, there's two main choices for a woman in skating, and one is to play the pretty girl and to play her exceedingly well. Sara is a prime example; she's elegant, she can do an arabesque that makes an audience erupt into cheers, every movement is polished, and her styling is perfect. She wears gorgeous dresses and does a beautiful layback spin and she also has that stupidly reliable lutz-loop.

Sara's the kind of skater who makes little girls' eyes sparkle. Mila knows; she once was a junior in envy of Sara's grace and glide. She's lovely _and_ she can jump, the best combination to go up against, so beautiful it's easy to forget her strength.

Mila can't do that. It's just not her style. If she tried, at best she'd be like that girl in the pastels who went twenty minutes earlier, who always aims so hard for pretty princess and ends up at clunky teenager, another girl in another nice dress.

The other option is to kick that idea in the face. Mila doesn't make anyone gasp in awe of her sheer beauty, like Sara does, but she sure as heck stands out in her own way. Georgi helped her get her eyeliner sharp enough to cut, she's pinned some of her hair above her undercut, and instead of a dress dripping with crystals, she's got on a sleek bodysuit. Still dripping with crystals. She loves a good sparkle.

Mom thinks it's the ugliest thing she's every worn in a competition, but Yakov's opinion is the one that matters, and he didn't blink the first time she showed up for practice in costume. She doesn't think it even has anything to do with how the guys have been making him tear his hair out this season.

The first notes of her music ring out, thumping like her heart. Mila throws her head back and then throws herself forward. She's been taking hip-hop and modern dance classes for months to help her do this program right, alongside the normal ballet lessons, and the pole-dance she's been trying out after seeing Yuuri and Chris at the last GPF banquet. The choreography is hard and awesome and flowing and hers.

She's already pretty pleased with herself when she sets up for her first jump. She may not have Sara's consistency or her combination, but Mila's got her own strength and she's been fighting hard for a rare triple axel. A shift of her weight, a swing of her leg, arms back and forward and up and oops, she forgot Yakov's advice: she rushes the take-off in her eagerness.

It's not rotated at all, but at least she reacts fast enough that she doesn't fall. Make up for it, she tells herself. Make them forget about it. So she focuses instead on the bend of her knees, on the movement of her hand, on going into her next jump and stabbing the ice with her toe pick and flying.

She has this. She does.

The program is exhausting, but it's also the most fun one she's ever had. Mila smiles when she steps off the ice, and Yakov is doing that thing where he doesn't smile on the outside, but somewhere, deep in his heart, a tiny chip of happiness radiates and it somehow comes off in his aura.

Her score goes above Sara by a hair. The last girl goes, and Mila doesn't try to quash her pleasure when an early mistake flusters her into more, no falls but enough little moments racking up that her score eventually slides in just beneath Sara's. Mila is so happy when she sees that she's won that she jumps around out of sheer joy, almost falls from losing her balance in her skates, and then hugs Yakov.

She's amazing, today is amazing, and that gold medal is going to be amazing as soon as it gets around her neck.

It feels like hours later that they all get back to the hotel. Sara lingers longer than most of them in the lobby, checking her phone and biting at her lip. Mila hangs back with her, spending a few minutes texting her rink mates and her family. The gold medal is heavy and welcome against her chest.

When Sara goes for the elevators, Mila trails behind her. "Your free skate this season is so good," she says when she catches up to her.

"So is yours," Sara says, her voice warm but her eyes lacking some of their usual brightness. "It's really different, but it's so on-brand for you! It makes me want to try something like it. Maybe next season, after I take a couple of golds over you again...."

"Hey!" Mila laughs and nudges her with her shoulder. The elevator arrives. Inside, Sara checks her phone twice in a row, frowning. "Hey," she says again, this time without the laughter. "Look, I brought some snacks with me, but Gelya never came by to share them, and if I eat all of them by myself, Coach will yell at me. Want to help a girl out?"

"Hmm," goes Sara, and then she checks her phone again – the screen is blank, no new messages – and says, "Sure."

Mila did bring snacks – maybe too many, but better too many than too few, in her opinion – and in her hotel room, she dumps them out on her bedspread and slides up on it with Sara. There's oranges and protein bars and, of course, chocolate. Sara breaks open an orange first, so Mila pretends to be healthy for a moment and does the same.

"You doing okay?" she asks as they both work on the peels.

"Yeah, why?"

"Just saw you checking your phone a lot. And you don't usually watch Mickey from the stands with the rest of us. You aren't fighting or anything, are you?"

Sara's face falls, and she sets her orange down in her lap, staring at it. "No, we're not. Really! Actually, it was my idea to – we're not fighting."

"Your idea to...? Not have him with you today?"

"Yeah." Sara scrapes some pitch off her orange. She looks upset, and Mila slides closer to her, wanting to cheer her up.

"Even though you're not fighting? You seemed kind of anxious about it. I was worried I should be mad at him."

Sara gives a weak laugh. "No, it's a good thing. I told him that we needed to be more independent. I mean, we're twenty-four already! At some point we're going to retire, take up separate careers, maybe get married... we can't stick together all the time, right? And I know it's been holding us back to be like that, so I said we needed to have some space, and I knew he wouldn't like it, but then he skated like that and proved it was the right choice. It's just...."

"Weird?" Mila prompts after a long few moments of silence. She doesn't entirely get it – she doesn't have any siblings herself. But Sara and Mickey have so often been Sara-and-Mickey. The CrisSibs, even, as some fans call them. Sara's there to cheer Mickey up in his kiss-and-cries, and he shows up in hers to grin next to her. It's always been like that, for as long as Mila has paid attention to them.

"Yeah," Sara says. "It almost feels like he's giving me the silent treatment. Even though he isn't. He texted me after my program, but it didn't feel like normal." The last of the peel breaks from the orange underneath her fingers. The room smells heavily of citrus, the scent blanketing them. "I forgot that I'm always used to having him be right there, too, even when I didn't want him to be. We just need time for it to be normal, is all. It's not like we're moving away from each other."

Mila makes an encouraging noise, not sure what to say, but apparently that's enough to get Sara to take a deep breath, relax her shoulders, and change the subject. After the oranges, they break open the chocolate, and they watch some stupid internet videos until they're both in stitches.

Sara looks a lot more cheerful when she leaves for the night. She has a gorgeous smile, and it's breathtaking to see from so close. Mila wishes her a good-night and then goes to clean up her bed.

Mickey's going to be at the banquet tomorrow. If he and Sara are trying to be less clingy, maybe they'll both still be weird with each other, but perhaps Mila can help distract Sara again. Yuri will be sore from losing to JJ, who's boring, and Victor and Yuuri both left already, so they'll have to make their own entertainment. She has a few ideas.

Probably there will be no poles for her to show off her new pole-dancing skills. But she got pretty good at lifts over the summer. Maybe Sara would like a demonstration, Mila thinks, grinning to herself as she plonks into bed. She can't be that much heavier than Yuri is.

Her legs hurt, but it's worth it for the satisfaction of a hard-fought competition. Even more so for the medal on her bed stand. Mila lifts it above her head and looks at it in the dim light from her window. It could be any color, if she didn't know better; knowing it's gold, it seems to glow. There's more work to be done, as Yakov will no doubt remind her as soon as they get home – that darn axel, her stamina, a million little things – but she doesn't care right now, the medal warming against the skin of her hand and the thrill of a victory in her heart.


End file.
